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Allan Hume, The Game Birds of India, Burma and Ceylon, Calcutta: A O Hume and C H T Marshall, 1879-1881

(Set of 3 Volumes)
Volume I: ii and 279 pages including 45 hand-coloured lithographed plates. Published in 1879, this volume is dedicated to ducks, swans and geese
Volume II: 264 pages including 44 hand-coloured lithographed plates. Published in 1880, this volume is dedicated to snipe, bustards and sand-grouse
Volume III: 438 pages including 54 hand-coloured lithographed plates; 4 famous colour egg plates and 6 index pages. Published in 1881, this volume is dedicated to pheasants and bustard-quail
In original green boards with gilt-stamped peacock illustrations on front boards of each volume; gilt lettering and ruling on front boards and spines; blind-stamped on rear boards.
26.5 x 16.5 x 3.5 cm (each)

One of the classics of ornithology literature and the definitive volumes on the game birds of the Indian subcontinent.

Allan Octavian Hume (1829 - 1912) was a Scottish civil servant and reformer who arrived in India in 1849 and joined the Bengal Civil Service in Etawah, Uttar Pradesh and thereafter, rose steadily in the ranks. After retiring in 1882, he was instrumental in the birth of the Indian National Congress.

In India, Hume embarked on an ambitious project to document the birds of the subcontinent, leading to the largest Asiatic collection of birds housed in his home in Simla. His work resulted in a publication, and his collection of more than 80,000 specimens was eventually donated to London's British Museum (Natural History), now the Natural History Museum, in 1874. Hume also founded a journal titled Stray Feathers, and he is sometimes referred to as the father of Indian ornithology.

The present lot, a set of three volumes, is the second edition of a definitive classic on Indian ornithology edited by Hume, and contains superior plates and new material. In the introduction to the first volume, the author states that the present work is essentially a new one since it "adds a considerable amount of matter not obtainable by me when writing in India."

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